Private Albert 0liver Clift

Albert 0liver who was born in the first quarter of 1888, was the second child of 34 year old Samuel and Ann Clift.

The 1891 Census reveals that 37 year old Samuel was a compositor by occupation; the family lived at 52 Kingston Road in Wimbledon.

At the time of the 1901 Census, the Clift family had moved to 1 Manor Cottage in Wimbledon.

By the time of the 1911 Census, only 23 year old Albert 0liver and his 55 year old father were living at Manor Cottages. By then Albert was working as a clerk to a barrister.

0n September 11th 1915, the 27 year old Albert who was currently serving as a soldier married 23 year old Ellen May Baggett who was the daughter of Edward William Baggett, an army caterer at their Parish Church in Merton Surrey.

Albert 0liver enlisted at Hounslow, Middlesex in the 9th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and was killed in action on the 21st March 1918.

Historical Information
High Wood was fiercely fought over during the Battle of the Somme until cleared by 47th (London) Division on 15 September 1916. It was lost during the German advance of April 1918, but retaken the following August.

The original London Cemetery at High Wood was begun when 47 men of the 47th Division were buried in a large shell hole on 18 and 21 September 1916. Other burials were added later, mainly of officers and men of the 47th Division who died on 15 September 1916, and at the Armistice the cemetery contained 101 graves. The cemetery was then greatly enlarged when remains were brought in from the surrounding battlefields, but the original battlefield cemetery is preserved intact within the larger cemetery, now known as the London Cemetery and Extension.

The cemetery, one of five in the immediate vicinity of Longueval which together contain more than 15,000 graves, is the third largest cemetery on the Somme with 3,873 First World War burials, 3,114 of them unidentified.